1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print processing apparatus, a print processing method, and a computer-readable medium storing a print processing program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In printing data generated by an application operating on an OS (operating system) such as Windows (registered trademark), the application is usually configured to output depiction data referred to as GDI (Graphic Device Interface) function to a graphic engine that is generally referred to as GDI. The GDI function is converted into the so-called DDI (Device Driver Interface) function and output to each printer driver that is prepared for each printer. The printer driver converts the DDI function from the graphic engine into data in a format that may be recognized by the printer such as PDL (Page Description Language). The converted data are stored in a spooler provided by the OS, and the spooler transmits the data to the printer to execute a print job (e.g., see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-3258 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-46817).
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an exemplary configuration of a print processing system according to the prior art. In the illustrated print processing system, print processing apparatuses 2101, 2102, and a printer 2103 are interconnected via a network 2100. For example, as is illustrated in FIG. 2, in this system, an application 2201 implemented in the print processing apparatus 2101 issues a print command to a printer driver 2202. The printer driver 2202 generates print data (PDL), and a spooler 2203 spools the data generated by the printer driver 2202. The spooler 2203 retrieves each set of print data from a print data queue and transmits the print data to a port monitor 2204. The port monitor 2204 transmits the print data to the printer 2103 via a communication module 2205.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a functional configuration of a print processing apparatus according to another prior art example. According to this illustrated example, a resident printer monitoring module 2300 is provided in the print processing apparatus 2101 to monitor the status of a print job. It is noted that other features of the print processing apparatus of this prior art example are identical to those described in relation to the example of FIG. 2.
In the print processing system according to the prior art, an external module such as the port monitor 2204 in the example of FIG. 2 or the resident printer monitor module 2300 in the example of FIG. 3 is configured to monitor the status of a print job within the printer 2103 during and after print data are transmitted to this printer 2103 and display a notification screen such as a popup display screen signaling the occurrence of an error or completion of the print job.
In such an error/completion notification system, the error/completion notification on/off setting may be stored in the port monitor 2204 or the resident printer monitor module 2300 as setting values of print utility software, for example. The setting of the error/completion notification may be realized by activating a print notification setting screen that is supported by the software, for example. Once the setting is set, the same setting is applied to every print job until the setting is changed using the print setting screen.
However, there may be cases in which error/completion notification is desired only for a particular print job (e.g., an important print job, or a large-scale print job requiring a long period of time) while the error/completion notification setting is set off (turned off) for a normal print job. In order to realize such a setting in the prior art, the print notification setting screen of the print utility software has to be activated before executing the particular print job to set the error/completion notification setting to on mode, and after status notification for this print job is completed, the error/completion notification setting has to be set back to off mode. Such operational procedures may be quite burdensome to the user.
It is also noted that in the prior art, the error/completion notification is transmitted only to certain print processing apparatuses such as the print processing apparatus generating the print data and a print processing apparatus designated by a user. In such a case, the progress of a print job may not be determined at a terminal apparatus that does not have the error/completion notification function set beforehand.